The name Silver Street comes from the Old English Selvernestrate meaning of silver and, indeed, Stow remarks that Silver Street is so named because of siluer smithes dwelling there (Ekwall 76; Stow 1:299). The connection between Silver Street and the metal silver seems to have been well known to early modern Londoners. For example, Ben Jonson’s The Staple of News cites Silver Street as the region of money, a good seat for a usurer (Jonson 3.Int.1-4). Important sites on Silver Street included Windsor House, a great house builded of stone and timber, and St Olave, Silver Street church, a small thing, and without any noteworthy monuments (Stow 1:315; 1:306). Perhaps the most noteworthy historical fact about Silver Street is that it was the location of a house in which William Shakespeare dwelled during his time in London.

Shakespeare lived in one of what Stow calls the diuers fayre houses on the street (Stow 1:299), in particular, above the Mountjoys’ head-dress shop. The Mountjoys’ business was nestled, as Charles Nicholl argues, on the eastern corner of Monkwell Street and Silver Street1 (ShaLT; Nicholl 47). Depositions from the Bellott-Mountjoy Dowry Lawsuit of 1612 indicate that Shakespearelaye in the house of the Mountjoys, a French Huguenot family whom he had known for the space of tenne yeres or thereaboutes (Nicholl 288-89). Shakespeare’s deposition from 11 May 1612 affords us two remarkable historical artifacts: a transcription of words known to have been spoken by one Mr. Shakespeare, and one of the few surviving examples of his signature.

MLA citation:

Takeda, Joey, and Kim McLean-Fiander.
“Silver Street.”
The Map of Early Modern London.
Ed. Janelle Jenstad.
Victoria: University of Victoria. Web.
17 August 2017.
<http://mapoflondon.uvic.ca/SILV1.htm>.

Chicago citation:

Takeda, Joey, and Kim McLean-Fiander. n.d.
“Silver Street.” The Map of Early Modern London.
Ed. Janelle Jenstad.
Victoria: University of Victoria. Accessed
August 17, 2017.
http://mapoflondon.uvic.ca/SILV1.htm.